Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Life's Magic


 

Robert R. McCammon (Boy's Life)...


  “You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.


   After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.

   That’s what I believe.

   The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens.

   These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you.”

9 comments:

  1. Really good post....and I'm trying not to lose that magic and childlike faith...so trying. Now, just get me one of those umbrellas! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This expression of exposures speaks so highly. I would hate/love to blame it all on the lose of glorious magic. But instead it would indeed feel too guilty in placing blame on that which is so secretly special and within us. Maybe instead of weeping we could remain happy in knowing it will never leave us, despite not knowing where it has gone. Perhaps it is the realisation in the death of magic that makes us miss it so much more.

    Thank you for posting this, it came at the right time X

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is truly magical. Love the way you express your thoughts. And thanks for sharing with your less creative friends. :-) Sara

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a beautiful post... I like to hold on to that inner part of me that believes in magic, and living happily ever after. Now, I call it optimism and love for life.

    As to your comment in my blog, sure- Let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls."

    too true.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I knew you would love this. One Tree Hill rocks! Still one of my fav shows ... and such an amazing season finale. It seems to have had just the effect I knew it would.
    Love you Bear :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mhairi, insightful as always. I'm glad you got something from it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Honey thanks for saving this so I could see it, I really enjoyed it! Love you. xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Sara: thanks for your words, I'm always happy to share them.

    @Heaven: I'll be in touch shortly.

    @THAT girl who: ain't it though? But ultimately only if we allow it.

    ReplyDelete